Deep Thoughts

Well, that was a random arrival. I'm pretty sure he showed up to spy for mother. He expressed pleasure at the cleanliness of my bathroom, the contents of my fridge, and then we had McDonald's for lunch while watching 1000 Ways to Die.

I've never had a family member just show up on my doorstep before. That was random. :)

I called Mom to chat with her after the fact (she denies any involvement in the situation). We ended up discussing medical care.

Her doctor informed her yesterday that he is switching to concierge service. For a hefty yearly pricetag, his patients receive...all the services they should be getting from their doctor.

Mother confronted him about it.

"This is not something I want to do," he said. The insurance companies have basically made it impossible for doctors to get any sort of cut of...anything. He did a procedure recently at Scripps hospital and Medicare (or Medicaid...one of the Medis) gave him twelve cents. He sees dozens of patients a day, then goes home and does paperwork, approving something for insurance, writing an explanation, etc. So he is switching to concierge, largely to cut out insurance and its meddling.

"More doctors are going to do this," Mother warned.

"Where's that leave me?" I asked. "Do I not deserve health care?"

This led to how America is basically eating its middle class alive. Mother is usually very pro-USA; she's from a generation where that sort of thing was drilled into them, and frankly, the country was better off back then, too. It has steadily crumbled over the years. The president, who we had such great hopes for, basically handed us to the insurance companies on a silver platter and has done diddly squat otherwise. Maybe his hands are tied. Maybe our system is so screwed up that we really can't do much but expect more of the same, no matter what party we elect.

I am very fortunate. My insurance pays for most of my medications. Hell, I don't need the acne stuff - I want it, because I don't want to be a hideous monster, but it's not life-threatening. The VeraMyst I'm on to decompress my sinus issues...I have lived without that stuff, and it sucks. My quality of life plummets. It's hideously expensive without insurance. The full battery of tests I would need to figure out exactly what is wrong is hideously expensive with insurance. So what am I supposed to do? I can't diagnose the shit, so I continue to treat the symptom. And even then, I'm lucky. It's not cancer. It's not some horrific disease requiring constant hospitalization.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Mom decided to go for the service, since he's a good doctor and those are tough to find, especially today. "When you reach my age," she said, "you will want a good doctor." And I understand that. It's not her I'm upset with - I felt she was a bit defensive - I don't blame her for that. I'm disgusted and disappointed that this country has fallen so far that we need to turn to such measures.

Of course, I say this right now, while I'm listening to Jon Stewart's closing statements at the Rally to Restore Sanity and I wonder if we can't turn this around somehow.

I also wonder if a comedian-journalist is a viable candidate for office...he seems to give more of a damn than a lot of the politicians we've currently trusted our lives to.